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Unsolicited Bar Advice

Many of my friends who have already taken and passed the bar exam have offered up plenty of unsolicited advice to me in the past few weeks about how to approach bar exam studying, I thought I'd share their advice here for those of you who are interested.

(1) Barbri in Useless state recommends that we read the entire outline (from the books made out of legal sized paper) for each subject before coming to the lecture for that subject. Despite that recommended advice, all of my friends have said that doing this is a waste of time. The lectures focus in on exactly what from each subject you need to know for the bar exam, the outlines have a lot of extraneous information that there's no reason to spend time learning.

(2) In Useless state the bar exam is out a total score of 400 points. 200 for the MBE and 200 for the writing day (combination of performance tests and essays). Raw scores on each section are scaled and a passing score is a 276 scaled score. Barbri drills the 276 number into our heads, trying to get through to the gunners that there is no need to try and ace the exam, just get a 276 and you're good. However, this isn't exactly true. In Useless state, any score between a 276-280 is subject to an automatic regrade, if you fall below a 276 on the regrade then you fail the whole exam. So really, 281 is the magic number, cause no one wants to risk a regrade! Make sure to check your state's grading procedures and figure out where you're going to need to be on each portion to not necessarily ace the exam, but to pass without problems.

(3) Take at least one day off every week until after the 4th of July. Depending on how you feel after 4th of July weekend continue taking at least a day off, or start adding a few hours of studying to your normal "off" days. Rest/relaxation/breaks and a little bit of fun are as important during bar exam season as studying is, otherwise you'll be burned out before the exam actually happens.

(4) Just because all of your friends, study buddies, etc., are making thousands of flash cards for every bar subject doesn't mean you have to do that too. If flash cards have never worked for you before don't try to make them work for you now. Flash cards are not the key to passing the bar. You've spent many years up to this point discovering what study methods work and don't work, so don't try something totally new just because you feel like you have to be doing the exact same thing everyone else is doing to study for the bar.

(5) Although the bar is important and no one really wants to have to take it a second time, remember that this exam is not the be all end all of your entire life. It's just a test. Repeat, it's just a test. Plenty of fabulous attorneys have failed the bar on the first try. Many more have failed it multiple times. The bar is not an accurate measure of the kind of attorney you will be or how successful of a career you will have. It's just a hurdle. Nothing more, nothing less. With that in mind, it is something that requires attention, effort, and focus for 8-10 weeks, but it is not something that you should kill yourself over.

Feel free to share any other tidbits of advice that you've heard, learned, or discovered :)

Full post as published by [ Useless Dicta ] on May 28, 2009 (boomark / email).